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EccoPro: Why has nobody developed a clone so far?
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Posted by Dominik Holenstein
Aug 26, 2007 at 08:36 PM
After playing around with EccoPro a while I am asking myself these questions:
1. Why has no developer created an EccoPro clone so far?
2. Why was the development of EccoPro stopped in 1997?
I am personally very surprised how stable EccoPro 4.01 runs on my machine (WinXP SP2). And I am overwhelmed by the functionality of EccoPro.
Further, even a lot of developer are marekting their tools as ‘EccoPro clones’ etc. no one really delivers the same or similar functionality.
Dominik
Posted by David Dunham
Aug 26, 2007 at 09:39 PM
I’ll have to ask one of the team members I know. My guess is that once they were part of a larger corporation, the product didn’t get as much attention.
So what features are you especially craving? There are a number of reasons I’m not cloning it, but I’m always trying to figure out the best bang for the buck when adding to Opal.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Aug 26, 2007 at 09:50 PM
I absolutely agree with you. Ecco is one of a kind.
For what it’s worth, SQLnotes is an Ecco replacement. There have been a couple of other vaporware attempts over the years (Cold Mountain neXpect, Chandler, etc.), but SQLnotes is 1) not vaporware, though beta, and 2) has a superset of the Ecco functionality, not a subset, except for some features which have been farmed off to Outlook integration. Chandler is basically never-ending vaporware and the data model is silly; they would have been better off with the Ecco model.
TinderBox on the Mac is also an Ecco replacement. It’s in version 4.0 and has an enormous feature set, again a superset of Ecco, but the learning curve is steep and its approach is different. But all the goods, including a data model of comparable power combined with outlining are there. It’s a good product if you think visually.
The things that make Ecco special are the simple data model combined with outlining everywhere. If you’re willing to sacrifice the data model but want to keep powerful columnar outlining with filters, etc., there are several good choices on the Mac (TAO, OmniOutliner, etc.). The market for this kind of software on Windows seems to be moribund.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Aug 26, 2007 at 10:05 PM
By the way, if you use Ecco mostly as a task management or GTD tool (for which it is excellent because of the ability to have custom views), the new Mac app OmniFocus is probably the best replacement.
Omni took the outlining stuff from OmniOutliner, combined it with a date engine (like Ecco, it has repeating dates, though the model is more flexible in that repetition can be based on either when a task is completed or when it was scheduled to be compled) and added calendar integration and filters. It’s not quite as general purpose as Ecco in that there are two hardcoded custom views (native and by context), though you can open any number of windows with filtered “Perspectives” (their term). It’s hierarchical, of course, having the OmniOutliner editor embedded. The current beta doesn’t support custom columns, but obviously that functionality is in their outlining control and they just have to expose it. Again, it’s pretty close to Ecco, but without the Ecco data model’s full generality. Still, it’s as good as or better than Ecco for GTD, being tilted in that direction. I wish it was a total Ecco clone, but if wishes were horses…. Anyway, Omni has a full development team, it’s not a one man shop, which is reassuring. I use it myself, now, though I still keep Ecco around.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Aug 26, 2007 at 10:11 PM
Development of Ecco was halted in 1997 when Microsoft decided to bundle Outlook with Office 97. Netmanage threw in the towel, realizing it was hopeless to compete. I wrote more about the business aspects of this decision in a post here:
http://www.compusol.org/ecco/eccocase.html
Btw, if you’re new to Ecco, be sure to investigate the eccoext extension that’s floating around. Some hackers found out how to get at the Ecco data directly and the extension adds a swath of interesting new features.
—Chris
Dominik Holenstein wrote:
>2. Why was the development of
>EccoPro stopped in 1997?